> The internet just made all of that knowledge much easier to access, with the time/cost/distance dependency being removed.

Yes, but I don't know what point this is supposed to make, though. LLMs lowered certain costs in an extreme way.

You could always have become a plumber in order to negotiate with plumbers. The reason you didn't is because the investment to become a plumber was more than you were likely to get the price lowered (or to save by doing the work yourself), and you would have to anticipate your needs before they came up. The people who did become plumbers set up (or joined) a business and marketed themselves so they were negotiating with a lot of people over a lot of jobs, making the investment worth it.

People who invested the time to learn plumbing traded with other people who also concentrated their investments into a few things (but different things), and together, made civilization.

> Does an LLM really change what COULD have always been done, or just make it more accessible for those of us who do/want to have the tool?

I'm trying to figure out if you were arguing with somebody who said that it was IMPOSSIBLE to learn the things that people clearly know how to do. Changing arguments into existence proofs has always made them easy to refute; I'm not willing to say that it's impossible for pigs to fly, it's just not cost effective. AI has clearly made it cheaper to obtain the knowledge negotiate with plumbers about a specific plumbing problem that just came up in your life than watching hundreds of hours of This Old House, buying your own tools, and practicing.

I agree with your assessment, it's maybe a bit of both.

The internet has given anyone/everyone a voice, for better or for worse, both widening and shortening the feedback loop. Now LLMs are shortening the loop even more, while unable to distinguish fact from fiction. Given how many humans will regurgitate whatever they read or heard as facts without applying any critical thought, the parallels are interesting.

I suspect that LLMs will affect society in several ways, assisting both the common consumers with whatever query they have at the moment, as well as DIY types looking for more in-depth information. Both are learning events, but even when requesting in-depth info, the LLM still feels like a shortcut. I think the gap between superficial and deep understanding of subjects is likely to get wider in the post-LLM world.

I do have hope for the garbage in, garbage out aspect though. The early/current LLMs were trained on plenty of garbage, but I think it's inevitable that will be improved.

With an LLM it takes 15 minutes. With libraries and books and youtube and research probably 4 hours.

Thats a meaningful difference to get upto speed.

If you're an engineer you get a hell of a lot of agency in 15 minutes.

A lot providers will mark up prices for things that actually don't matter. You ca definitely figure that out quickly and tell them its not needed.

And hten others will give you a cheaper alternative at a higher price - this is really fucked but I"ve seen it a lot.

Essentially service providers (most) are screwing you on price is terrible ways. LLMs can get you 20% off at the VERY least.

IF you aren't in a hurry you can cut a lot more down and even do most of the things on your own with a LLM.